We've moved in! So our built ins are not ready yet, and we still need to buy a new sofa and a mattress, but the wet kitchen is more than functional, so armed with my microwave convection oven, and the plethora of imported produce one can find in the Klang valley, it was more than easy to whip something up.
Finally we're here. No more early morning meetings with contractors, shopping frenzies, thronging psycho home fairs and stressing. Sure, there's still work to be done, but now that we've moved in, the sense of urgency is very much reduced. Now I just have to re-establish my fitness routine (haven't properly worked out in more than a month), just to make it complete.
Breakfast today - baked eggs. So easy - I used lamb merguez sausages that I cut up and browned in a hot pan and placed in an ovenproof dish. Broke 3 eggs over, a teeny splash of milk and chopped chives. I didn't salt the eggs - the sausages are tasty/savoury enough to carry the dish.
No I did not die nor go into hiding of any kind. Here's what we've been super busy with!
The end is so near I can almost smell it.
After the roller coaster ride we went through to get this place, the stress and energy spent during the entire renovation process, we're almost there. Almost. My hope is that we can move in in time to celebrate AK's upcoming big day.
Front facade before - note the angular side wall
The back
The dry kitchen, which has sliding doors that open to the teeny wet kitchen
The front extension - our contractor removed the pesky angular wall, pushed the door out and centralized our windows. I love my big windows!
View from the inside. Oh, and note the plaster ceiling. We decided to only do the sides, to keep the ceiling as high as possible
The back extension added an indoor drying cum storage area and made my wet kitchen HUGE
Wet kitchen after the extension.
View from the back of the house
We used Niro Granite wood plank lookalike tiles for the countertop and grey volcanic stone-like wall and floor tiles
We just got back from an 8-day trip to Beijing, or as it played in my mind before we went, The Motherland. Beijing is THE place to start with if you're thinking about discovering China. I am have been far too wired to concentrate on work this week, so I focused on writing this little piece instead.
Of course we visited the requisite Great Wall, Forbidden City, Summer Palace, Temple of Heaven and Tiananmen Square, and they were all great. We also had great fun just walking around these places that should definitely be part of your itinerary should you pay this city a visit:-
Nanluoguoxiang
….i.e. Hutong Central. As per my previous post we roomed at this quaint but elegant little place for 4 days before switching up to the Traders Hotel in the CBD area, and while it had its little faults (no space/hooks for hanging our stuff, no kettle for hot water), its location more than made up for it. It is smack right in the middle of a historical alley (or hutong) converted into totally unique little shops. We tried all kinds of street food - traditional barbecued lamb and chicken skewers, barbecued squid, egg white pancakes, Beijing-style yogurt (so creamy and gooood) and steamed milk, breakfast pancakes made with egg, spring onions, stuffed with a deep fried cruller and three types of sauces (fermented bean, chilli oil and something else – hoisin, maybe?), deep fried tofu in a sweet chilli sauce, Taiwanese deepfried chicken tenders (puts McDonald’s nuggets to shame), drank neat “mojitos” and milk tea, and dropped by the local Starbucks for much-needed, super hard-to-find, expensive coffee.
AK and his steamed milk
Yogurt in clay jars
Starbucks in the Hutong
We also oohed and aahed at the creative means the Chinese use to decorate their interiors – the use of traditional tea display racks to showcase Brazilian coffee, how they maintain their Chinese identity in design of bot the interiors and facades. And oh, and the stuff they were selling – from household items (French countryside inspired décor, traditional and modern takes on Chinese teas and teasets, Mao prints on everything from enamel mugs to coasters), to clothes and accessories (super-arty origami-inspired local designs, ming pottery made into jewelry, cheap shoes, handmade leather bags) and Chinese-y souvenirs. I bought French-country inspired enamelware (for planting herbs in) and sleek teaspoons at the adorable Kodo.
Nanluoguoxiang shop display - modern take on Ming pottery
The glasswares section of Kodo
It was great fun walking here, taking in the cacophony of sights, ducking every now and then into aforementioned shops. I highly recommend spending some lots of time in this area (half a day is ideal) and really loved the fact that the hutongs were literally at our doorstep. Every shop was unique in its own right, and there was some repetition, but overall minimal. I do feel that Malaysian retailers pale in comparison in terms of creativity and uniqueness, and will never be satisfied walking in Malacca’s Jonker Street/Penang’s Batu Feringghi markets again.
Pangjiayuen Antiques Market
We went faux-antiquing twice at this huge market, once on a weekday and on a Saturday morning. I much prefer going on a weekday. There aren’t that many stalls (but still number at the hundreds), it’s less crowded thus it’s easier to navigate/get shopkeepers’/stall owners’ attention, and most importantly, less foot traffic means more relenting sellers. No doubt, the variety is definitely larger on the weekend, and someone who relishes the challenge of the bargain would prefer to go on a weekend, so do what suits you. AK went a little crazy over these cute wooden stands/bases that are designed for holding teasets and I bought some really pretty celadon bowls. What else were they selling? Chinese locksets, vintage suitcases/ice buckets/gramophones, reproduction furniture, stone sculptures, faux-bronze vessels and figurines, beads of amber/turquoise/tiger’ eye/jade/amethyst and who knows what other stone, pottery (I bought celadon ones), artwork, silverware (from huge cauldrons to traditional headdresses), and who knows what else.
Tribal embroidery
Bargain bargain bargain!
Tribal neck and headpieces - real statement, these things
Antique locks and curtain hooks
Wangfujing
We skipped the Malls at the Orient Plaza, but managed to locate Hai Di Lao in the Intime Lotte mall. All the stories of the courteous staff are true. We ate our way through more than ten plates of mushrooms, two types of beef balls, minced beef with egg (highly recommended), slices of lamb, squid and vegetables cooked in “heaven and hell” broths (bone stock and fiery sezhuan), accompanied by a plethora of dipping sauces (minced beef, mustard, XO, satay, minced garlic, vinegar, you name it). On the way back to the train we stopped by the warren of stalls/shops at the back of street. AK picked out two pairs of shoes that he would normally never consider – but they were fun and so unbelievably priced that he scooped them up. I couldn’t help checking out the three-storey Forever 21 behemoth on Wangfujing. Everything there is Made in China anyway so it makes sense that they’re super cheap. In fact I returned twice to Wangfujing just for the store alone. What I got - comfy shorts for lounging around the house, lots of cute earrings, a funky belt and a striped tee.
Oh, and not China-related but I have to say something anyway. Our house is slowly but surely coming together; the tiles are up in the two upstairs bathrooms and we are going to pick out the flooring for the upstairs rooms as well as decide on kitchen cabinets and built-in wardrobes. We are so close! AK has already picked out the menu for our first home-cooked dinner (lor bak, lotus root soup).
Finally, an expose on what is going on in Sarawak. I thank Global Witness for putting the spotlight on the utter contempt the current rulers of Sarawak rule the state with.
I wrote this the couple of words below months and months ago, but never posted because, well, I never really perfected it, and the timing always wasn't right.
Now with this piece appearing in the likes of internationalnewsoutlets I can only hope that the story continues to spread like wildfire, and the Federal government will be shamed into doing something.
It might be imperfect, and I have so much more to say, but here it is:
I am no political activist, but I read and I watch the news and am a big follower of Malaysiakini.
The roads that link Miri, its northernmost "city" (and the oil and gas hub of the state) to Bintulu, its industrial hub and home to one of the largest LNG plants in the world (processing some ~8% of Malaysia's GDP right there) are nothing more than poorly constructed roads that even the worst municipals here in the Klang Valley would be downright embarassed with. When it rains (and boy it does during the monsoon), gaping holes emerge due to bad construction. There are no emergency phones for one to use when stranded, no highway patrols to come to one's rescue should your car break down anytime throughout this hundred-kilometer journey. Heck, there aren't even any streetlights or reflectors.
Yes, the news we read everyday about a certain self-designated First Lady and her shoppingsprees, the Scorpene submarinesfiasco, PKFZ, and Lynas frustrate and worry us. But for the most part we go on with our lives. And let's face it, for most of us, our lives are (for now anyway) unaffected by the corruption in our government
But not in the case of Sarawak, where corruption has resulted in abject poverty for its citizens. Take a drive in Miri. Barely a few hundred metres away from the colonial-styled expatriate housing for RDS staff you will find squatters with their houses patched from zinc and planks. Drive towards the beach in Luak and you will, I guarantee, gawk at the palace-like houses of the timber tycoons. Miri's only Lamborghini is driven by one of their sons. Yet the companies balk at raising the minimum wage of its workers from RM400 to RM800 per day. Which Malaysian lives on RM400 a month these days? Well, timber workers do.
Sarawak is not Malaysia. Here in the Peninsular we have highways, decent if under-capacity public transport, and a comparitively louder, if sometimes ineffective voice of opposition - whether it's in the form of protesting the opening of a rare-earths processing plant, a rally for free elections, or the opposition political parties having their say.
In Sarawak, there is a deafening silence as the beat goes on. The Chief Minister halts the flow of new businesses into the state, lest its loosens his and his cronies' dominance over the local economy. Education is stifled (or left to nothing, which for someone in a Chief Minister's position is unforgiveable). In the meantime, the forests are pillaged, the people exploited, their ancestral land and way of life give way to modern day exploitation and poverty. Don't think slumdog millionare is only a story or Mumbai or India for that matter. Think only the Philippines has children digging through garbage for sustenance? We see that every day in Sarawak, a land so rich in oil and gas and timber and fertile soil. A land with a UNESCO world heritage site in its Mulu caves.
Sarawak is not Malaysia. It's a dictatorship, plain and simple, with only a select few benefiting from the vast riches of the state, while the rest not only barely scrape by, but are constantly exploited, abused and neglected.
The Marcoses were overthrown, but this Minister has stood the test of time. Sarawak stands on its own, isolated, its people kept in the dark and wasting away.
It is my hope that the likes of Malaysiakini, the political oppostion, the churches and Christian fellowships (who hold a strong influence in the state), the ketua kampungs, the Sarawakians who have left Sarawak for greener pastures (this accomplished man comes to mind), would come together and reclaim what is fair and just for the people of Sarawak. Because they cannot do it on their own, isolated and beaten down as they are. I pray that one day the Pope would visit his devotees in Sarawak and publicly rebuke the Chief Minister, just like Pope John Paul II did to Imelda Marcos. These are small things, realistic things that could happen. At the very least, draw some attention. Embarass our Federal Government for allowing this to happen for so many years. A revolution, I am afraid, is too much to ask for.
Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor who lost his entire family to the Nazi concentration camps, said this, "There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.”
